Thursday, December 17, 2009
Year End Report
Since my last blog entry, I've run three more races. When you add in Thanksgiving, my son's 8th birthday, and Christmas preparations, it's been a busy few weeks.
11/14/09 - Team Nashville 10 Miler - 1:15:06 (7:31) - I ran the first three miles sort of fast, but I didn't feel like pushing it. It was cold, and I knew I had another race the next day. So the last seven miles I slowed down and focused on running "marathon pace". I felt fine at the end, so it was hardly a race effort. But technically it was still a PR because I've only done a couple of 10 mile races.
11/15/09 - TSBA 5K - 19:24 (6:15) - Another cold morning, but I felt pretty good. I led from the beginning, and I finished first overall. I was only 6 seconds over my PR, which wasn't bad for having no one in front of me and running my second race of the weekend.
11/22/09 - Flying Monkey Marathon - 4:10:11 (9:33) - As in years past, the wheels came off in mile 19. I ran the first 14 miles with my friend Phil. He made us run smart and easy, and we intentionally averaged about an 8:45 pace for those miles. Then at 14 he took off, and I couldn't keep up. When I got to the 18 mile mark, I was still doing "ok", but I knew the next 4 miles were going to suck. And they did. I lost a ton of time there as I walked up the hills and stopped to stretch. I eventually figured out that my lower back muscles were painfully tightened up, and that was causing the tightness in my glutes, hams, and knees. After I did some toe touches and trunk twists (in mile 22), my back relaxed, and I felt much better. I ran the last 4 miles fairly well, but I missed going sub-4. My splits were 1:50 for the first half and 2:20 for the second half. Sheesh.
Next year I plan to just volunteer for the Monkey. Running it three times is enough for me. I love everything about the race except running the 26.2 miles. I realize now that I'm not a marathoner, and I'm ok with that. I'm also ok with the fact that most of my running friends are marathoners, and they love it. I enjoy running up to 13 miles or so, but I mostly enjoy running fast. Running long may be better for others, but it's not my thing. I'm averaging a little over 30 miles a week this year, and that's not enough to race marathons on. But with good planning, it's enough to get two quality, intense runs, a long run, and a couple of short, easy runs each week. I'm happy with that, and we'll see what I can do with that knowledge next year.
Live well and have an excellent holiday season!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Aaron’s Birthday Cakes
Almost every year of Aaron’s life we’ve made a custom birthday cake for him. Amy’s mom used to make them for her, so we started doing it for Aaron on his first birthday. We’ve only missed one year so far. Most of the cakes are made by baking multiple 9” x 13” flat cakes and then cutting and re-assembling the pieces to the desired shape. At Aaron’s 2008 party, someone asked me to see pictures of all the cakes we’ve made for Aaron, so I finally got them together.
| Year | Aaron Turned | Cake (click each image for a larger version) |
| 2002 | 1 | Elmo cake made with a special pan. |
| 2003 | 2 | Hand-drawn Larry the Cucumber. |
| 2004 | 3 | We didn’t make a custom cake this year because we had Aaron’s party at the Nashville Zoo, and they wouldn’t let us bring in our own cake. They said no outside food was allowed in the zoo because it might be harmful to the animals (and a few actually came to his party). |
| 2005 | 4 | Crocodile with licorice lips and candy corn teeth. |
| 2006 | 5 | Tank with cookie wheels. |
| 2007 | 6 | Monster truck. |
| 2008 | 7 | R2-D2 was the original plan, but after cutting it out I had enough scrap pieces left over to make a UT cake and two footballs too.  |
Labels: Personal
